Brian Moore
publisher
NYRB Classics
format
Paperback
pages
240
Frank Delaney
The Flight of Gemma Hardy
Margot Livesey
American Dervish
Ayad Akhtar
Time and Again
Jack Finney
THE LONELY PASSION OF JUDITH HEARNE was the book that made Brian Moore's literary reputation (BLACK ROBE; CATHOLICS; and THE STATEMENT); he was shortlisted for the Booker three times and five of his novels have been made into films, including this novel. The film starred Maggie Smith and Bob Hoskins. The New York Review of Books is reissuing this elegant little novel mid-June and establishing Moore as an unflinching chronicler of the human soul. His deep sympathy and immense skill make this story of an ordinary woman confronting the limitations of her life an unforgettable one.
Judith Hearne is an unmarried woman of a certain age who has come down in the world. She scrapes by with a dwindling annuity left to her by the aunt she spent her youth nursing and the earnings from a few piano lessons. She's full of the prejudices and piousness of her genteel Belfast upbringing, so it is with some reluctance that she accepts the attentions of her landlady's brother, a former doorman lately returned from America. But Judith has a secret life, one nobody suspects until circumstances force her to loosen her grasp on respectability in a spectacular act of self-destruction.
Moore was born and grew up in Belfast, Northern Ireland. His father was a pro-axis surgeon and his mother was a nurse.[1] He grew up in a large Roman Catholic family of nine children, but rejected that faith early in life. Some of his novels feature staunchly anti-doctrinaire and anti-clerical themes, and he in particular spoke strongly about the effect of the Church on life in Ireland. A recurring theme in his novels is the concept of the Catholic priesthood. On several occasions he explores the idea of a priest losing his faith. These works were criticized by his sister, a Roman Catholic nun.
Moore was a volunteer air raid warden during the bombing of Belfast by the Luftwaffe. He also served as a civilian with the British army in North Africa, Italy and France. He went on to work in Eastern Europe after the war ended for the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration. Moore emigrated to Canada in 1948, worked as a reporter for the Montreal Gazette, and eventually became a citizen of Canada. While he eventually made his primary residence in the United States, he continued to live part of each year in Canada up to his death.[2] He also taught creative writing at UCLA.
His earliest novels were thrillers, published under his own name and the pseudonyms Bernard Mara and Michael Bryan.[3] Moore's first novel outside the genre, Judith Hearne, remains among his most highly regarded. It was made into a film, with Dame Maggie Smith playing the lonely spinster who is the book/film's title character. Several other Moore novels were adapted for the screen, including Intent to Kill (1958), The Luck of Ginger Coffey, Catholics, Black Robe, Cold Heaven, and The Statement. He also wrote the screenplay for Alfred Hitchcock's Torn Curtain and The Blood of Others, based on the novel Le Sang des autres by Simone de Beauvoir.
Brian Moore died in 1999 at his home in Malibu, California, aged 77, of pulmonary fibrosis. He had been working on a novel about the 19th-century French symbolist poet Arthur Rimbaud. [1]
Moore's archives, which includes unfilmed screenplays, drafts of various novels, working notes, a 42 volume journal (1957-1998), and his correspondence, are now at The Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas. [2]
Moore has been the subject of two biographies, Brian Moore: The Chameleon Novelist (1998) by Denis Sampson and Brian Moore: A Biography (2002) by Patricia Craig. One of the first critical retrospectives of Moore's entire body of work can be found in Brian Moore and the Meaning of the Past (2007) by Patrick Hicks
Information about the publishing of Moore's novel, Judith Hearne, and the break-up of his marriage can be found in Diana Athill's memoir, Stet (2000).
Beyond the book
The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne is an unflinching and deeply sympathetic portrait of a woman destroyed by self and circumstance. First published in 1955, it marked Brian Moore as a major figure in English literature (he would go on to be short-listed three times for the Booker Prize) and established him as an astute chronicler of the human soul.
Brian Moore burst upon the literary scene in 1955 with this moving and brilliantly observed study of a woman imprisoned by the passage of time. He went on to be hailed as one of the best fiction writers of his generation. Alone in her room in a Belfast boarding house, Judith Hearne is almost overwhelmed by loneliness. Yet she still believes there is a chance for happiness, and she waits patiently for the moment when her life will turn from sorrowful longing to joy. By chance she meets a man the man and her dreams take on a brighter hue, only to be dashed once more. With skill and gentle insight, Moore depicts the disintegration of Judith Hearne's last illusions. Clinging to the bottle for comfort, she becomes a tragic figure who speaks frankly about the human condition. Though we laugh at her foibles, we weep at her plight, and share her primal longing for love and connection. This touching story was made into a critically acclaimed motion picture in 1987.